With its growth in scale and diversity, China has in recent years expanded its movie and television program exports from Southeast Asia - traditionally its best-selling region - to the emerging markets of Africa, the Middle East, Europe and North America, Ma adds.

Apart from selling programs, China has been building channels or buying blocks of hours in local broadcasters' schedules in a bid to tailor Chinese content to appeal to foreign audiences.

China International Television Corp, which launched an alliance linking about 50 domestic top players in November, is a frontrunner in distributing Chinese productions overseas.

Last year, the household Chinese TV drama Journey to the West, the fantasy-adventure show recounting the travels of the mythological superhero, the Monkey King, aired in Nepal with the dialogue dubbed into Nepali, earning national-viewing figures of up to 34.5 percent.

"It was very popular there. Nepal's news agencies reported its debut as important news, making it a hot topic among locals," says Shen Jianing, assistant to the president of China International Television Corp, which sells an average of more than 20,000 hours of Chinese programs to more than 200 countries and regions around the world every year.

She is also sensing a change in tastes: Chinese dramas set against the backdrop of modern China have been selling much better than in the past.

The 45-episode romantic drama Mr Right, starring A-lister Jin Dong, and the 38-episode Wang Kai-headlining series Stay with Me, are two recent examples of Chinese series that were well received abroad.

Life Revelations, a 35-epsiode TV drama starring Hu Ge and Yan Ni, topped the local ratings for several weeks to reach more than 23 percent of the national audience when it aired in Mongolia last year, says Shen.

Receiving more than 200 million views on YouTube, Ode to Joy has become the top urban-themed Chinese TV drama of all time, and one of China's most popular domestic series overseas. It has been screened in more than 10 countries and regions, including Vietnam, Russia, Singapore, North America and South Korea.